On&nbsp;Saturday November 23 the 0+ Space will be&nbsp;closed.

Please note

Main Collection

Acquired from Igor Makarevich

Private gift

Acquired from the artist

Acquired from XL Gallery, Moscow

After graduating in graphic design from Camberwell (a college of University of the Arts London), Peter Belyi spent a long time working with xylography, creating “giant engravings on Brazilian plywood.” In 1999 he became a full member of the Royal Society of Painter‑Printmakers, which admits only two artists per year. After returning to Russia in the early 2000s Belyi’s creative practice changed radically. He rejected traditional media in favor of creating installations and objects. Using industrial materials, such as concrete, box profile roofing sheets, electric cable, steel rods or particle board, the artist deconstructs utopian projects of the past, revealing the disappointment and unjustified expectations associated with the functioning and subsequent winding down of the Soviet project. Belyi calls his creative method memorial modeling, where a futuristic concept like the “model” is examined in a critical yet nostalgic light. 

 In creating the installation Pinocchio’s Library, Belyi focused on the image of a1960s architect who is enthused by ambitious ideas of changing the world but is forced to design standard panel‑construction residential buildings. The upward‑focused wooden shelving units are reminiscent of a model of a future urban space that was not destined become reality. The roughly constructed boards are as if doomed to decay and gather dust within one of the numerous Soviet research institutes, eventually becoming a memorial to the last powerful utopian impulse of the twentieth century. Just as knowledge is inaccessible, restricted by rigid censorship and ideological frameworks, so the books in the library cannot be opened and read. The main character in the project, the wooden boy Pinocchio, is concealed within the material of the installation, metaphorically expressing the untapped potential of an entire generation of dreamers.

 After graduating in graphic design from Camberwell (a college of University of the Arts London), Peter Belyi spent a long time working with xylography, creating “giant engravings on Brazilian plywood.” In 1999 he became a full member of the Royal Society of Painter‑Printmakers, which admits only two artists per year. After returning to Russia in the early 2000s Belyi’s creative practice changed radically. He rejected traditional media in favor of creating installations and objects. Using industrial materials, such as concrete, box profile roofing sheets, electric cable, steel rods or particle board, the artist deconstructs utopian projects of the past, revealing the disappointment and unjustified expectations associated with the functioning and subsequent winding down of the Soviet project. Belyi calls his creative method memorial modeling, where a futuristic concept like the “model” is examined in a critical yet nostalgic light. 

 In creating the installation Pinocchio’s Library, Belyi focused on the image of a1960s architect who is enthused by ambitious ideas of changing the world but is forced to design standard panel‑construction residential buildings. The upward‑focused wooden shelving units are reminiscent of a model of a future urban space that was not destined become reality. The roughly constructed boards are as if doomed to decay and gather dust within one of the numerous Soviet research institutes, eventually becoming a memorial to the last powerful utopian impulse of the twentieth century. Just as knowledge is inaccessible, restricted by rigid censorship and ideological frameworks, so the books in the library cannot be opened and read. The main character in the project, the wooden boy Pinocchio, is concealed within the material of the installation, metaphorically expressing the untapped potential of an entire generation of dreamers. 

Pinocchio’s Library

Игорь Макаревич и Елена Елагина — одна из главных художественных пар в отечественном искусстве последних 40 лет. Они начали совместную работу в 1990 году, их первой совместной работой стал проект «Закрытая рыбная выставка», который на протяжении 20 лет развивался и дополнялся, став одним из знаковых произведений московского концептуализма. К моменту завершения в 2015 году в него вошло 110 объектов — примерно половина из них находится в собрании Музея Людвига в Ахене (Германия). В Музее «Гараж» находятся 24 объекта — крупнейший фрагмент «Закрытой рыбной выставки» в России. 

 Первый показ «Закрытой рыбной выставки» состоялся в 1990 году в загородном Музее МАНИ (Московский архив нового искусства) — на даче художника, участника группы «Коллективные действия» Николая Паниткова. В основе проекта лежала брошюра, выпущенная тиражом 245 экземпляров к выставке, которая была организована в 1935 году по итогам творческой командировки московских художников в Волго‑Каспийский Госрыбтрест в Астрахани, где они знакомились с работой советской рыболовецкой промышленностью. 

 По словам искусствоведа Екатерины Деготь, главная форма произведения в московском концептуализме — «превращенное в предмет слово». «Закрытая рыбная выставка» блестяще иллюстрирует этот тезис: Макаревич и Елагина реконструировали экспозицию по названиям работ в каталоге (в нем не было иллюстраций), буквально овеществляя их в форме загадочных ассамбляжей‑ребусов, собранных в основном из найденных материалов.

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 4

Caravan

Ris-Unok

 Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina are one of the key artist couples in Russian art of the past forty years. They began working together in 1990. Their first collaboration was the project Closed Fish Exhibition, which developed and expanded over the twenty years that followed and became a seminal work of Moscow Conceptualism. By the time it was completed in 2015, it included 110 objects, around half of which are now in the collection of the Suermondt‑Ludwig‑Museum in Aachen, Germany. At Garage there are 24 objects, the largest part of the Closed Fish Exhibition in Russia. 
 
 The first showing of the Closed Fish Exhibition took place in 1990 at MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) Museum in the country house of artist and Collective Actions member Nikolai Panitkov. The project was built around a brochure published in 245 copies for the 1935 exhibition that followed an official trip by Moscow artists to the Volga‑Caspian Gosrybtrest [State Fish Enterprise] in Astrakhan to learn about the Soviet fishing industry. 
 
 According to art historian Ekaterina Degot, the main art form in Moscow Сonceptualism is «the word, turned into an object.» The Closed Fish Exhibition is a brilliant illustration of her thesis: Makarevich and Elagina have reconstructed the 1930s exhibition based on the titles of works in its catalogue (which had no illustrations), literally turning them into objects‑enigmatic riddles assembled largely from found materials. 

Radio Motor at Sea

Sketch 2

Anastasia Bogomolova’s works have been exhibited at Garage more than once. The project Bakal (2016), about the inmates of the labor camp in Chelyabinsk Oblast, was shown at the 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2017), and the installation Lookbook (2014–2018) was part of the exhibition The Fabric of Felicity (2018). 

 Bogomolova’s interests are broad and varied: from the toponymics of the Urals to botany. The installation Total: 1,118,176 rubles and 4 kopecks to produce 10 art projects in the period 01.11.2017 to 01.11.2022 (of which 6 completed, 1 in progress, 3 unknown status) was commissioned by Garage and explores economics and the financial position of the artist, a theme that until recently was rarely and unenthusiastically discussed but which today is an object of sociological research. Bogomolova arranges her financial autobiography in the form of an accountant’s office where you can find receipts, reports and other sensitive information that is usually concealed. 

 These types of documents are usually analyzed by descendents (as in the case of the illustrated list of purchases created by Michelangelo for his servant on March 18, 1518) or are a means of criticizing various aspects of the capitalist system (Hans Haacke’s works). But Bogomolova uses financial accounting with a different aim in mind. By revealing the “exact sum” to the viewer, she proposes perceiving artistic labor as actual labor and not as an inspired impromptu event with no concrete value.

 Anastasia Bogomolova’s works have been exhibited at Garage more than once. The project Bakal (2016), about the inmates of the labor camp in Chelyabinsk Oblast, was shown at the 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2017), and the installation Lookbook (2014–2018) was part of the exhibition The Fabric of Felicity (2018). 

 Bogomolova’s interests are broad and varied: from the toponymics of the Urals to botany. The installation Total: 1,118,176 rubles and 4 kopecks to produce 10 art projects in the period 01.11.2017 to 01.11.2022 (of which 6 completed, 1 in progress, 3 unknown status) was commissioned by Garage and explores economics and the financial position of the artist, a theme that until recently was rarely and unenthusiastically discussed but which today is an object of sociological research. Bogomolova arranges her financial autobiography in the form of an accountant’s office where you can find receipts, reports and other sensitive information that is usually concealed. 

 These types of documents are usually analyzed by descendents (as in the case of the illustrated list of purchases created by Michelangelo for his servant on March 18, 1518) or are a means of criticizing various aspects of the capitalist system (Hans Haacke’s works). But Bogomolova uses financial accounting with a different aim in mind. By revealing the “exact sum” to the viewer, she proposes perceiving artistic labor as actual labor and not as an inspired impromptu event with no concrete value. 

Total: 1,118,176 rubles and 4 kopecks to produce 10 art projects in the period 01.11.2017 to 01.11.2022 (of which 6 completed, 1 in progress, 3 unknown status)

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 2

Cuts

Red Fish Cutting

Still Life with Fish

Igor Samolet came to the fore in the late 2010s, when he offered a new approach to project photography, basing his multi‑part installations on screenshots of messages in messenger apps and on social networks. Samolet considers these traces of human communication or reactions to the world a basic unit of personal and collective memory. In his projects of the past eighteen months, the artist has begun to reconsider his method, introducing into his practice various objects, documentary photography, and texts by invited curator friends. 
 
 The installation Angle of Incline, shown at XL Gallery in spring 2024, reflects this stage in his search for a new voice. The screenshots became memories, dark silhouettes‑like books or faded photos‑in the counter‑light of fabric pockets. The artist appeared in the video, where his condition and intention were revealed not through words (a message in online correspondence) but through actions: resisting the pressure of water strong enough to knock him down and defending himself with a deformed canvas “until he found a position that balanced his effort and the opposing pressure. This balance was the perfect ‘angle of incline’.” However, it was unstable, as the tilt angle (in geodesic terms) is always described in percentage rather than exact values since it is dependent on the original horizontal and vertical coordinates. That is why the expressive video and the minimal curtain with pockets, which might lead the viewer to reflect on geometric abstraction or poetic refrains, are complemented by a shabby box in which the artist sent the work to a curator friend. It is evidence of the horizontal connections that, today more than ever, are essential for our stability.

 Igor Samolet came to the fore in the late 2010s, when he offered a new approach to project photography, basing his multi‑part installations on screenshots of messages in messenger apps and on social networks. Samolet considers these traces of human communication or reactions to the world a basic unit of personal and collective memory. In his projects of the past eighteen months, the artist has begun to reconsider his method, introducing into his practice various objects, documentary photography, and texts by invited curator friends. 
 
 The installation Angle of Incline, shown at XL Gallery in spring 2024, reflects this stage in his search for a new voice. The screenshots became memories, dark silhouettes‑like books or faded photos‑in the counter‑light of fabric pockets. The artist appeared in the video, where his condition and intention were revealed not through words (a message in online correspondence) but through actions: resisting the pressure of water strong enough to knock him down and defending himself with a deformed canvas “until he found a position that balanced his effort and the opposing pressure. This balance was the perfect ‘angle of incline’.” However, it was unstable, as the tilt angle (in geodesic terms) is always described in percentage rather than exact values since it is dependent on the original horizontal and vertical coordinates. That is why the expressive video and the minimal curtain with pockets, which might lead the viewer to reflect on geometric abstraction or poetic refrains, are complemented by a shabby box in which the artist sent the work to a curator friend. It is evidence of the horizontal connections that, today more than ever, are essential for our stability. 

Angle of Incline

Portrait of a Helmsman

Kazan artist Ilgizar Khasanov has been a key figure in the art scene of his city for several decades. Khasanov works with the Soviet material legacy, revisiting it in a lyrical way. Collecting various rare and unusual everyday objects from the Soviet period and combining them into installations, he does not aim to reproduce the spirit of the era but wishes to reveal through objects the personal stories of their anonymous owners. In a way, these often very ordinary and unassuming objects are themselves animated and reveal their independent life in the gap between the aesthetics of the Soviet era and individual human destinies.

 The installation Diary of an Unknown Person (1956–1965) is based on the diary of a Soviet citizen purchased at a flea market. The diary covers the years from 1956 to 1965, with entries written not daily but selectively. Most entries consist of monotonous descriptions of unremarkable events that happened during the day. Khasanov has complemented this striking document of the early Khrushchev Thaw period with authentic objects of the time: a stool, a worn jacket, a cigarette, an inkwell, and a still life featuring a modest lunch. These objects create an illusion of the anonymous protagonist being present in the room and reconstruct fragments of their everyday life, while the glass corridor space with the absurd signs for the entrance and exit refers, according to the artist, to images of a sarcophagus or a fairy‑tale coffin.

 Kazan artist Ilgizar Khasanov has been a key figure in the art scene of his city for several decades. Khasanov works with the Soviet material legacy, revisiting it in a lyrical way. Collecting various rare and unusual everyday objects from the Soviet period and combining them into installations, he does not aim to reproduce the spirit of the era but wishes to reveal through objects the personal stories of their anonymous owners. In a way, these often very ordinary and unassuming objects are themselves animated and reveal their independent life in the gap between the aesthetics of the Soviet era and individual human destinies.

 The installation Diary of an Unknown Person (1956–1965) is based on the diary of a Soviet citizen purchased at a flea market. The diary covers the years from 1956 to 1965, with entries written not daily but selectively. Most entries consist of monotonous descriptions of unremarkable events that happened during the day. Khasanov has complemented this striking document of the early Khrushchev Thaw period with authentic objects of the time: a stool, a worn jacket, a cigarette, an inkwell, and a still life featuring a modest lunch. These objects create an illusion of the anonymous protagonist being present in the room and reconstruct fragments of their everyday life, while the glass corridor space with the absurd signs for the entrance and exit refers, according to the artist, to images of a sarcophagus or a fairy‑tale coffin. 

Diary of an Unknown Person (1956–1965)

Ris-Unok. Lead Pencil

Игорь Макаревич и Елена Елагина — одна из главных художественных пар в отечественном искусстве последних 40 лет. Они начали сотрудничество в 1990 году, их первой совместной работой стал проект «Закрытая рыбная выставка», который на протяжении 20 лет развивался и дополнялся, превратившись в одно из знаковых произведений московского концептуализма. К моменту завершения в 2015 году в него вошло 110 объектов — примерно половина из них находится в собрании Музея Людвига в Ахене (Германия). В Музее «Гараж» хранятся 24 объекта — крупнейший фрагмент «Закрытой рыбной выставки» в России. 

 Первый показ «Закрытой рыбной выставки» состоялся в загородном Музее МАНИ (Московский архив нового искусства) — на даче художника, участника группы «Коллективные действия» Николая Паниткова. В основе проекта лежала брошюра, выпущенная тиражом 245 экземпляров к выставке, которая была организована в 1935 году по итогам творческой командировки московских художников в Волго‑Каспийский Госрыбтрест в Астрахани, где они знакомились с работой советской рыболовецкой промышленности. 

 По словам искусствоведа Екатерины Деготь, главная форма произведения в московском концептуализме — «превращенное в предмет слово». «Закрытая рыбная выставка» блестяще иллюстрирует этот тезис: Макаревич и Елагина реконструировали экспозицию по названиям работ в каталоге (в нем не было иллюстраций), буквально овеществляя их в форме загадочных ассам‑бляжей‑ребусов, собранных в основном из найденных материалов.

 Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina are one of the key artist couples in Russian art of the past forty years. They began working together in 1990. Their first collaboration was the project Closed Fish Exhibition, which developed and expanded over the twenty years that followed and became a seminal work of Moscow Conceptualism. By the time it was completed in 2015, it included 110 objects, around half of which are now in the collection of the Suermondt‑Ludwig‑Museum in Aachen, Germany. At Garage there are twenty‑four objects, the largest part of the Closed Fish Exhibition in Russia.. 
 
 The first showing of the Closed Fish Exhibition took place in 1990 at MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) Museum in the country house of artist and Collective Actions member Nikolai Panitkov. The project was built around a brochure published in 245 copies for the 1935 exhibition that followed an official trip by Moscow artists to the Volga‑Caspian Gosrybtrest [State Fish Enterprise] in Astrakhan to learn about the Soviet fishing industry.. 
 
 According to art historian Ekaterina Degot, the main art form in Moscow Сonceptualism is «the word, turned into an object.» The Closed Fish Exhibition is a brilliant illustration of her thesis: Makarevich and Elagina have reconstructed the 1930s exhibition based on the titles of works in its catalogue (which had no illustrations), literally turning them into objects that are enigmatic riddles assembled largely from found materials. 

Closed Fish Exhibition

Deck

Unok

Sketch 1

Alexei Shulgin is a pioneer of net art and early computer art. His key work 386 DX was “the world’s first cyberpunk band, a singing computer based on the Intel 386 DX microprocessor, which became available in 1985 and by the time of the making of the work was considered outdated.
 
The members of the band are the components of a system unit: a 40 MHz chip, 8 Mb of RAM, a 40-Mb hard drive, a Creative Soundblaster 16 sound card, and the operating system Windows 3.1. 
 
To create the vocals, Shulgin used existing MIDI files and manually programmed the musical notation using TextAssist text‑to‑speech software to create the effect of real singing, producing huge text files. Recording an album this way took about a year. 
 
The band has played in Russia, Europe, and the USA, some¬times as a street performer in museums, metro stations or outside in the rain, hiding under an awkward umbrella, and took part in live audiovisual concerts with the artist.
 
In creating such performative situations, Shulgin is com‑menting on the nature of algorithmic (and artistic) labor, the autonomy of computing systems, the problem of obsolescence in technology, and the reproduction of images (and sounds) in popular culture. These questions remain relevant today, when neural‑network‑based generators imitate human creativity, making various communities‑from developers and politicians to creative industries and artists- revisit questions of authorship and labor ethics.

 Alexei Shulgin is a pioneer of net art and early computer art. His key work 386 DX was “the world’s first cyberpunk band, a singing computer based on the Intel 386 DX microprocessor, which became available in 1985 and by the time of the making of the work was considered outdated.
 
The members of the band are the components of a system unit: a 40 MHz chip, 8 Mb of RAM, a 40-Mb hard drive, a Creative Soundblaster 16 sound card, and the operating system Windows 3.1. 
 
To create the vocals, Shulgin used existing MIDI files and manually programmed the musical notation using TextAssist text‑to‑speech software to create the effect of real singing, producing huge text files. Recording an album this way took about a year. 
 
The band has played in Russia, Europe, and the USA, some¬times as a street performer in museums, metro stations or outside in the rain, hiding under an awkward umbrella, and took part in live audiovisual concerts with the artist.
 
In creating such performative situations, Shulgin is com‑menting on the nature of algorithmic (and artistic) labor, the autonomy of computing systems, the problem of obsolescence in technology, and the reproduction of images (and sounds) in popular culture. These questions remain relevant today, when neural‑network‑based generators imitate human creativity, making various communities‑from developers and politicians to creative industries and artists- revisit questions of authorship and labor ethics.

Computer. 386DX

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 3

Fishing Season (version)

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 1

1. Открытый доступ

Мастер

Elena Elagina (1949–2022) was born in Moscow and studied in the Philology Faculty of Moscow Pedagogical Institute. 

 Igor Makarevich was born in 1943 in Trialeti (Georgian SSR). He studied in the Art Faculty of the All‑Union State Cinematography Institute (VGIK). 

 From the late 1970s they were involved with the group Collective Actions. The project Closed Fish Exhibition (1990) marked the beginning of their working together. Selected solo exhibitions: Within the Limits of the Beautiful, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (2005); In Situ , Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2009); Countdown , Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2020). They took part in the 53rd (main project, 2009) and 54th Venice Biennales (Russian Pavilion, as part of the exhibition Empty Zones. Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Actions, 2011). They are winners of the Innovation Prize in the nomination Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Art (2012) and the Moscow Prize in the nomination Visual Art and Architecture (2021).

Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina 

Alexei Shulgin was born in Moscow. He graduated in Cybernetics of Metallurgical Processes from Moscow State Institute of Steel and Alloys. He is the founder of the Immediate Photography Group (1987). Beginning in 1997, he was one of the first people in Russian making Internet art. In 1998, he founded the cyberpunk rock group 386 DX. In 2004, together with Aristarkh Chernyshev, he created the project Electroboutique. Selected solo exhibitions: Televisions, XL Gallery, Moscow (1994); Beauty Inside, XL Gallery, Moscow (2005); Montage, Moscow House of Photography (2002); KRITI‑POP (with Aristarkh Chernyshev), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2008). Selected group exhibitions: I Believe!, Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2007); Futurology, Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2010); 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (as part of the group Electroboutique), ARTPLAY Design Center, Moscow (2014). He is a winner of the Kandinsky Prize in the nomination Media Art. Project of the Year (with Aristarkh Chernyshev, 2009).

Shulgin Aleksey

Anastasia Bogomolova was born in Qostanay (Kazakh SSR). Selected solo exhibitions: Dacha/Garden, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2014); Lookbook, Nizhny Tagil City Museum of Visual Arts, Chelyabinsk State Museum of Visual Arts (2016–2018); Сompartment Height, OkNo Gallerym Chelyabinsk (2023). Selected group exhibitions: 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2017); The Fabric of Felicity, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2018); Taming the Void. Fifty Years of Contemporary Art in the Urals, National Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, Arsenal, Nizhny Novgorod, Ploshchad Mira Museum Center, Krasnoyarsk (2017–2018); Art and Life in Critical Zones, Konstmuseet i Norr, Kiruna, Sweden (2024).

Bogomolova Anastasia

Peter Belyi was born in Leningrad. From 1990 to 1992, he studied at Leningrad Mukhina Higher Industrial and Art College. In 2000, he completed his Master’s degree at Camberwell School of Art. In 2009, he founded the gallery Lyuda. He is a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Artists. He is a recipient of the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize in the nomination Best Work of Visual Art (2009) and the Innovation Prize in the nomination Curatorial Project (with Alexander Terebenin, 2015).

Belyi Peter

Igor Samolet was born in Kotlas. He graduated from Syktyvkar State University in graphic design and from Rodchenko Art School (Moscow). Selected solo exhibitions: Drunken Confessions, Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin Foundation, Moscow (2017); See me more, Atelier AM ECK, Dusseldorf (2017); Error Energy, Multimedia Art Museum Moscow (2019); Everything We Remember, Stella Art Foundation, Moscow (2021); The Politics of Hate, szena gallery, Moscow (2021). Selected group exhibitions: Ostlook Exhibition. Contemporary Photography from the East, Hamburg (2018); Über Leben am Land, Kunsthaus Vienna (2019). He is a winner of the German Photobook Award (silver medal, 2014) and a recipient of a Garage grant for emerging artists (2018–2020).

Samolet Igor

Ilgizar Khasanov was born in Kazan. He graduated from the Art Department of Kazan Theater College. He is the co‑founder of Smena Center for Contemporary Culture (Kazan, 2013). His solo exhibitions have taken place at the House of Scientists, Moscow (1991), Kazan National Cultural Center (1995), Central House of Artists, Moscow (1998), Russian Cultural Center, Prague (2000), Smena Center for Contemporary Culture, Kazan (2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023), and other venues. Selected group exhibitions: Another Generation, Central House of Artists, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum (1993); Fly I, New Gallery, Samara (2008); Traditions and Innovation, Manege Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow (2009); Territory of the Absurd, M&M Gallery, Kazan (2010; 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2017); Dreams of Milk, Voznesensky Center, Moscow (2022). He is a member of the Union of Artists of Russia (1996) and the Franz Kafka Society (Prague).

Catalogue of the Collection

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